Direct estimation of the oxygen requirements of Achromobacter xylosoxidans for aerobic degradation of monoaromatic hydrocarbons (BTEX) in a bioscrubber

The O2 requirements for biomass production and supplying maintenance energy demands during the degradation of both benzene and ethylbenzene by Achromobacter xylosoxidans Y234 were measured using a newly proposed technique involving a bioscrubber. Using this approach, relevant microbial parameter estimates were directly and simultaneously obtained via linear regression of pseudo steady-state data. For benzene and ethylbenzene, the biomass yield on O2, \(Y_{X{\text{/O}}_{\text{2}} } \), was estimated on a cell dry weight (CDW) basis as 1.96 ±.25 mg CDW mgO2 and 0.98 ±.17 mg CDW mgO2, while the specific rate of O2 consumption for maintenance, \(m_{{\text{O}}_{\text{2}} } \), was estimated as 0.041 ±.008 mgO2 mg CDWh and 0.053 ±.022 mgO2 mg CDWh, respectively.